


Ne Me Quitte Pas

by Black_Betty



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Love Letters, M/M, Pining, Romance, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:58:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Betty/pseuds/Black_Betty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s difficult to remember, sometimes, that a world away living nightmares are manifest. In the warmth of the Iowa sunshine, the heat, the tall green grass, the waving haze of golden corn, sometimes it’s easy to forget that men are dying in the cold, in the dirt, in an explosion or a sickening trickle of blood. Dying alone. It is Arthur’s biggest fear. He sees him in his mind’s eye, blood smeared across that beautiful face, cherished life flickering out of eyes like oceans, in a dark place, in a cold place, dying alone. Arthur doesn’t forget. Arthur doesn’t feel the warmth of the sunshine, doesn’t see the green and gold of the fields. Arthur lives everyday over there in the nightmare. With him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ne Me Quitte Pas

**Author's Note:**

> This was the very first fill I completed at the kink_meme for this prompt:
> 
> http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8qrektb0s1qabj53o1_500.jpg  
> The caption that accompanies the picture: Not every soldier that came home from the war had a lady waiting to kiss him. 
> 
> It is full of angst, but keep in mind that I am a hopeless romantic, and I promise you, I won't break your heart if you can make it to the end...HOWEVER--there IS a character death in this, but it isn't the death of one of the main characters...as I said, hopeless romantic :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been so lovely about this fic already over on livejournal :) I'm new to Ao3 (so please bear with me if anything is wrong or wonky!!) but it didn't seem right to have an account over here and NOT include this fic...
> 
> anyways, enough rambling! Enjoy!

 

 

_I hear an army charging upon the land, _

_ And the thunder of horses plunging; foam about their knees:   
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,  
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the Charioteers.   
  
They cry into the night their battle name:   
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.   
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,   
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.   
  
They come shaking in triumph their long grey hair:   
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.   
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?   
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?   
  
~James Joyce _

  
It’s difficult to remember, sometimes, that a world away living nightmares are manifest. In the warmth of the Iowa sunshine, the heat, the tall green grass, the waving haze of golden corn, sometimes it’s easy to forget that men are dying in the cold, in the dirt, in an explosion or a sickening trickle of blood. Dying alone. It is Arthur’s biggest fear. He sees him in his mind’s eye, blood smeared across that beautiful face, cherished life flickering out of eyes like oceans, in a dark place, in a cold place, dying alone. Arthur doesn’t forget. Arthur doesn’t feel the warmth of the sunshine, doesn’t see the green and gold of the fields. Arthur lives everyday over there in the nightmare. With him.   
  
Arthur survives by routine. He gets up in the morning. Showers. Checks the mail. Drinks coffee. Walks to work. Spends the day in a frozen haze. Worries that his smile has become a permanent grimace. Tries not to hit anyone. Tries not to yell at anyone. Walks home after work. Checks the mail. Forces himself to eats something. Forces himself not to drink more then one glass of whiskey. Checks the mail. Sleeps. Opens his eyes on a new day and forces himself out of bed. Repeat.  
  
Most days are a close variation of this routine, this construction of normalcy. Some days deviate. Some days he follows Ariadne home from work, and she cooks him a meal and tries to make him smile a real smile. It hasn’t happened yet. Ariadne means well, but being with her makes him feel like she’s rubbing him raw. She is concerned for him, but underneath that, basically happy, and innocent, has never lost someone, has never suffered. Arthur can’t be reminded of good things right now. Some days he sits on the porch with Mal, sharing a cigarette and a bottle of wine, talking in circles, talking about nothing. Desperately not talking about the men that have gone away. Their men. Sitting with Mal is like picking at a scab. Arthur can only stay so long before one of them bleeds like a freshly opened wound. He always leaves before that happens.   
  
Sometimes, on the nights when he hasn’t pushed himself far enough, hasn’t drank enough, hasn’t distracted himself enough, he can’t sleep. On these nights he allows himself a few moments of deep, consuming self-pity. He will roll over to face the middle of the bed, as he never does. He will stretch his hands over the soft material of the white sheets and will curl his fingers into the empty space. He will breath in and close his eyes, and imagine that he can feel soft breath across his face, a warm broad hand curling in his, a voice in the dark, deep and low, whispering his name. He will allow himself exactly five minutes of this before he pulls his hands back to his chest. He will roll over and force himself to sleep.  
  
Some days, he will check the mail, check the mail, check the mail, and there will be a letter. Arthur will stare at it, feel the world around him dim and darken, will tuck it deep into his breast pocket where it beats in counter point against his hammering heart. He will wait until he is in his room, in their room, and he will sink onto the floor and pull the envelope from his pocket tenderly, gingerly, as though it might fall to pieces. As though he might fall to pieces. In the warm glow of evening, he allows himself to wash away, allows himself a private smile at the scrawled, looping words, unbuttons his jacket, leaves himself open and lets everything go for a minute.   
  
In between the blacked out phrases of government censorship, he can almost hear his voice, can almost imagine him in a safe place. He writes of the inane, of the trivial, of the sights and sounds of Europe, as though he is on a grand adventure. The letters are stamped, England, Holland, France, and now, Germany, and he talks of seeing mountains, and enormous fir trees, endless lakes, the sun and the rain. Arthur can read between the lines, and sees the miles, the ocean between them, the void, the darkness, and though he writes it clearly in the end, in every word Arthur can see,  _I love you, I love you, I wish I was there, Arthur, Darling_. Arthur will read and re-read until the paper becomes soft from the oil of his hands, wrinkled from his tight grasp. Then he will stand and move to his desk. He will refold the letter and slip it into its envelope. He will place the envelope into a wooden box that holds other envelopes marked England, Holland, France, and now Germany. He will shut the box. He will pull all the stray thoughts and parts of himself together. He will re-button his jacket, and he will not look at the box again, until the next letter. If there is a next letter.  


  
***  
  


It’s not that Arthur wants to forget. Arthur can never forget. Every minute, every breath is consumed and expelled for one person only. It's just that if he allows himself to dwell, he will never think of anything else; he will live in the dream, and he will never get out of bed, will never feed himself, will never work and then what will Eames come home to?  
  
Eames. Eames. They met in 1932, when Arthur was 18, and living in England for a year on a special scholarship at Oxford University. Arthur, the pride of Waterloo, Iowa, top of his class, Valedictorian, All State in Track and Field. Arthur, the bright and shining star, over coming the loss of his father at the age of 12, strong and beautiful, his choice of any school in the state, maybe in the country, his choice of any girl in town. All eyes were on Arthur. Arthur just wanted to get away.   
  
So he picked the option that placed an entire ocean between him and Waterloo, Iowa. The entire town came to bid him farewell, the school band playing a raucous victory march, more than one teen girl with tears hidden behind a handkerchief. His mother was there, strong hands grasping his arms, staring him down and demanding a promise of safety from him. He settled into his seat, waving out the window, and when the train pulled away from the station, Arthur, with all of his accomplishments, with all of his success and adoration, the Prince of the city, had never felt so free.   
  
After living in Waterloo, a town he had always considered large enough, London had been massive, and overwhelming. He was happy to move to the relative quite of Oxford, and was happier to spend his every waking hour in moving through cobblestone streets, sifting through musty pages of ancient books, following his new friends to the local pub, where all the students went and pontificated about all they were learning, as though they, in their tender years, really knew the world and how it works. Arthur thought he was happy. Arthur thought he was the happiest he had ever been in his entire life. Then he met Eames.  
  


***  
  


Despite his protests about upcoming exams, his friends dragged him to the campus theater one night in March to see the student production of  _The Importance of Being Earnest._  Joe, as he latched onto Arthur’s arm in a vise grip, and dragged him out of his dormitory, said that the girl playing Cecily was a complete dish, and that Arthur wouldn’t be sorry. In the dark of the theater, Arthur saw for a fleeting moment, what Joe meant about Cecily, all tumbling red curls and ivory skin, before every ounce of his attention was consumed by the beautiful boy playing Algernon.   
  
Arthur had wondered about himself from time to time, wondered why he never felt the need for a girlfriend, why he had his pick of any girl in Waterloo Iowa, and still had remained alone, unwavering in his independence. When his mother had asked, he had said he was too busy for the distractions of romantic entanglements, but privately, he wondered if it was something else, and if he would always feel so lonely. He had resigned himself to being one of those people who were lifetime bachelors, creating friendships, gathering knowledge of the world, but sentenced to a life of solitude.  
  
Now, as watched Algernon on stage, blue eyes and cheekbones, lose brown hair, full lips pulled in the easy smile of the disaffected, idle rich, he knew. He knew he had been waiting for this moment, in the dark, all sound and attention narrowing down to his own breath and heartbeat in his ears, and the rolling British rumble of the man on stage as he tried to woo innocent country heiresses with red curls. He had found something he hadn’t even known he was looking for.  
  
After the play, Joe contrived to bump into the cast as they took celebratory drinks at a pub usually only frequented by those in the Arts Department. Arthur had been there once or twice, but had felt woefully inadequate with his accent, and his youth, surrounded by lilting voices trained for projection and tone, waxing poetic on Noel Coward and the Stanislavski Method, and he felt equally uncomfortable now, as Joe disappeared at the first glimpse of red hair. He eased himself onto a stool at the bar and waved a hand at the bartender for a pint, looking around surreptitiously for his own glimpse of full lips and cheekbones and an easy smile.

“Looking for someone?” A voice asked and even before turning around he knew who it would be. Up close, the man was, if possible, better looking, all pretention of his stage persona gone, leaving his face open with humor and goodwill. He smiled, and Arthur smiled back, and with a boldness that came from a place he’d never seen before nor since, he answered,

“You, actually.” The boy had grinned wider then, and Arthur thought he could spend the rest of his life trying to make this person a little bit happier, incrementally, every day. Slipping onto a bar stool next to him, they spent the rest of the night in a continuous flowing conversation, until Arthur thought his heart might explode. The man, Charles Eames (“just Eames though, if you don’t mind”) was a 3rd year Theater student, and it revealed itself through the way he spun stories for Arthur, laughing and gesturing with an ease Arthur himself had never mastered, drawing him into his tales, building images with his hands, over the top, and loud, and so full of life and wit that he seemed to be bursting at the seams. He also had a way of focusing all his attention on Arthur when he spoke in his own quiet, straightforward manner, as though everyone else in the room had disappeared, and Arthur was the only person in the world that mattered. Arthur had never been the focus of someone’s undivided attention before, he realized then, and it should have made him nervous, but instead he felt himself blossom, as though being from Iowa was actually interesting, as though Arthur himself was someone worthwhile.  
  
They had ended the night weaving through the streets drunkenly, and Eames walked him back to his dorm room, and when Arthur opened the door, Eames grasped his wrist carefully and turned him back around.  
  
“Arthur.” He said, he voice low, his eyes focused sharply on Arthur’s face. Arthur stared back for a breathless, hanging moment, and then they met halfway, and Eames beautiful mouth was as soft as it looked, and his broad hands that had been building folktales out of thin air hours before came to rest on Arthur’s face, holding it, tracing it with reverence, as though Arthur’s face was a story worth learning. Arthur felt a burst of life within him, so striking, so raw, that he wondered if he had even been alive until this moment. Eames pulled away and traced Arthur’s lips with his fingers. He smiled suddenly, and the dark hallway seemed illuminated. 

 

"I'll see you tomorrow." He said.

  


***

 

_It is partly because we are young that I feel this tenderness. _

_ I love your mouth.  _

_ I could not bear that it should be touched even by a cold wind if I were the Lord. _

_ We two, you know, have everything before us, and we shall do very great things.  _

_ I have perfect faith in us, and so perfect is my love for you that I am, as it were, still, silent to my very soul. _

_ I want nobody but you for my lover and my friend and to nobody buy you shall I be faithful. _

_  
_

_ I am yours forever _ .

  
  


They spent the next day together, and everyday after that, in between classes and exams and performances, and then it was summer, and Arthur’s scholarship was extended and he got a job in a small pub down the street from his flat, and Eames did nightly shows in a summer festival. They spent more time together then apart, drunk on sunshine and nights of whispered promises and cool sheets and tangled limbs. They fell into an easy rhythm, playing off each other, matching wits, bickering playfully, pushing each other, but only ever higher, to become more. Eames, for all his whirlwind mess and larger then life personality, was easy to be with, and was privately, only for Arthur, quiet, focused, wickedly intelligent, even sometimes shy. He looked at Arthur like Arthur was going to rule the world some day, and Arthur finally felt as beautiful and bright as everyone in Waterloo Iowa had believed him to be. 

  
At the end of his second year, and Eames’ fourth, Eames graduated, and when Arthur expected the end, felt it like he was awaiting his own execution, Eames had brought him to an empty flat, small and ramshackle, above a used book store in the village, and asked Arthur,  
  
“What do you think?” Arthur had looked around the small living room, smaller bedroom, and impossibly small kitchen, and then back to Eames, seeing the unspoken words in his eyes answering his own unspoken questions. _Yes, you idiot. For us. For both of us_. Arthur had smiled, and he realized, that this, this was the happiest he’s ever been in his life.   
  
  


"It's perfect."

  
  


***  
  


  


They lived like that for a year, Eames performing at the local theater, sometimes leaving for weeks at a time for productions in other cities, Arthur wading through mountains for literary criticism, piles of novels, and plays and poetry, constructing his own theories and hypothesis, hunched over a typewriter until Eames forcibly lifted him away and tumbled him into bed, cutting off his protests with a well timed kiss and his roving, talented hands. Fourth year had begun, and Arthur was in the midst of constructing a lengthy dissection of Joyce’s _Ulysses_ , when Eames announced his arrival with a well-aimed letter to Arthur’s face. Arthur scowled at him half heartedly, and opened the letter. 

  
He spent a long moment absorbing the words, and the moment seemed to stretch on into eternity. He was quiet for so long that Eames came into the living room complaining about the absence of soothing, monotonous typing and stopped short at whatever he saw in Arthur’s face. Arthur wordlessly handed him the letter, the letter written to him by a close friend of his mother’s, a letter that said that his mother was dying, had been dying for a long time, that she didn’t want Arthur to know, because then he would come home, and his education was so important…the letter that stated his mother was going to die, and soon, and she thought Arthur should be aware…  
  
He was aware of Eames’ eyes on his face, and of Eames slowly crouching down before him. He set the letter aside, and grasped Arthur’s limp hands, sitting like dead fish in his lap. Eames, speaking in that soothing tone of his,  
  
“When do you want to leave?” Arthur hears the implication and looks at him sharply. Eames had an audition for a theater company in London, and audition that could’ve meant big things for him. He had shook his head no and opened his mouth to protest, but Eames squeezed his hands and cut him off with a small, sad smile. “No Arthur. When do you want to leave?”   
  
They left the following week, Eames liquidating a large amount of money from the savings his parents left him to secure them two seats on a commercial flight to America. Arthur tried to protest this too, but Eames hadn’t even thought twice, just contacted his accountants in London, and made all of the arrangements, while Arthur tried to breathe, tried to focus, as he pulled out of all his classes with apologies to his professors, and quit his job at the pub, and put all of his possessions in a few suitcases along with Eames’ suits and shoes, and books. He tried to care about leaving Oxford, but for the first time in a long time, he was focused on Waterloo Iowa, the place he had fled from at 18, and now the place he couldn’t get back to soon enough. As he sat on the plane with Eames at his right hand side, he realized that Oxford didn’t matter, that Waterloo didn’t matter. It was Eames that he was taking with him, and his mother that he was going to, and that houses were just empty buildings waiting to be filled with pointless objects, but people were what made houses home.  


  
  


***

  
  


His mother had been shocked to see him, and he had been shocked to see her so frail, almost wasting away. _Scarlet Fever_  the letter had said, and he could see now how it had ravaged her, how her breath rattled in her lungs and as she wrapped her arms around him, how she clung to his arm as he walked her back inside her room. Rose, the neighbour who had wrote him the letter and who was evidently living here in his home to help take care of her, chastised her for getting out of bed. His mother had beamed up at him as he helped her up onto the mattress and under the covers and said she couldn’t help but come running when she heard her son’s voice. 

  
Arthur felt his heart break a little, but was distracted when her eyes slid past him to where he knew Eames was standing, holding the suitcases and looking a little lost for the first time since they left England. Arthur sat on the edge of her bed and reached out to Eames, who set the bags down and came close, folding his fingers into Arthur’s. Arthur introduced him, his eyes never leaving her face, and he watched has her gaze flickered from Eames to him, back to Eames again. She finally looked at Arthur, hard, her gaze as penetrating as he remembered, and slowly smiled.   
  
“You’re happy.” She said, not a question, but a statement, a sudden understanding of something it had taken Arthur years to figure out. He smiled back.  
  
  


  
She died three days later.   
  


  
  
The night after her funeral, Eames had held Arthur close in bed, as Arthur, for the first time since his father died, sobbed into his pillow. He hadn’t said a word, just held him tighter and tighter, explicit understanding, and mournful empathy in every line of his body, because Eames had lost his own parents in fire and twisting, tearing metal, and he knew. He knew. The next morning, Arthur’s eyes were dry as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. Eames shifted as he woke up, curling his arms around Arthur’s waist, and Arthur said,  
  
“I can’t go back there.” Eames blinked sleepily up at him and said,  
  
“I know.” Arthur felt himself go numb, and spoke around his heart when he asked,  
  
“So, when will you go back?” He felt Eames tense against him and then relax and wind himself tighter around Arthur’s body.  
  
“Oh Arthur.” He sighed. “When will you realize that you’re stuck with me now?”  
  
Arthur had looked down at him and had seen the smile, honest and wistful, and had shifted to wind his own arms around Eames.   
  


“I think I’m finally getting it.” He had answered, and he really thought he was. Arthur and Eames, Eames and Arthur. They were both alone in the world now, and while that hurt, and while he felt so much sorrow right now his bones ached with it, he held Eames in his arms and felt like he saw a brightness in the distance, a pinpoint of light on the horizon. 

  
  


***

  
  


_ I want… _

_ my light across the sea, _

_ my palm across the desert, _

_ my garden of lovely flowers, _

_ my million nameless joys, _

_ my day’s wage, _

_ my night’s dream, _

_ my darling and _

_ my star... _

  
  


Life after that wasn't easy, but Arthur could feel himself start to heal. The summer after his mother died, they spent their time renovating the house. Iowa had been hit hard by the depression, but his mother’s family had been wealthy, and she had survived on the money as long as she could during her illness, though the house had fallen into disrepair. With what money remained, Eames and Arthur had torn down and rebuilt, had repainted inside and out, and for one terrifying week, Eames had scrambled around on the roof, pulling out loose shingles and replacing them, fixing the crumbling brick of the chimney. Though the view had been nice, Eames, shirtless and golden brown from the sun, grinning down at him backlit by a perfectly clear blue sky, it was not worth the constant terror Arthur felt as Eames sauntered to and fro, shingles shifting audibly beneath his feet. 

  
  
Word had spread that Arthur Connolly, prodigal and beloved son of Waterloo had returned home, and people began to stop by. Arthur spent a good portion of the day shaking hands, trying to edge away from conversations with people from high school, and turning down the unsubtle flirtations of the town beauties so that he could get back to work. The renovations felt good. He still felt the presence of his parents strongly, but each new nail, each coat of paint felt like a rebirth. It was cleansing.  
  
  
They met the Cobbs a few weeks after his mother’s death. They lived down the street and were new to the city, a husband and wife both as beautiful and intelligent as the other, and they became fast friends with Arthur and Eames. Mal was from France, and she bonded with Eames in a spirit of Diaspora over their ex-pat status, laughing as they woefully but jokingly bemoaned the State of Iowa and wished for the refined beauty of their former countries. Dom was more like Arthur, quieter and more stoic in relation to his exuberant wife, but still burning as bright in his own way. He was originally from Des Moines, but had transferred to run the new branch of his Architectural firm. Mal taught French classes at the local high school, and Arthur could only imagine how the boys in those classes must swoon and sigh in her wake as she strolled down the hallways with her dancer’s grace. The evenings they didn’t spend quietly enjoying their privacy, wrapped up in each other, they spent with Dom and Mal, eating and laughing, sharing a bottle of wine, smoking out on the front porch, playing cards, and Arthur felt his world expanding.   
  


  


***

  
  


By the fall they had finished their renovations, and their reserve of money was beginning to wane. Ruefully Arthur went out to see what kind of job a university drop out would be able to get. It turned out being a local celebrity had its advantages, and he soon found himself working in the largest bank in town, first as a teller, then slowly working his way into his own office within a year. The bank was where he met Ariadne, working as a teller during the day, and taking classes at night at the local community college. She was a bright girl, fiercely intelligent and independent, and she immediately took to Arthur, and then Eames, worming her way into their lives, trying to soak up everything they knew, trying to encompass all the knowledge of the world.

  
Eames had auditioned on a lark one afternoon for the local Theatre Company, and Arthur grinned at the expressions of the creative team when he leapt up on stage and convincingly worked his way through one of the more famous Shakespearean monologues. He had laughed when he finished and Arthur had clapped and whistled from the back of the room, ignoring the glares he received, and as Eames jumped down they had ambushed him. He began teaching acting classes at the community center, and starring in pretty much any play they could stuff him in. Arthur relished the chance to see him act again, watching him work the stage, mold the audience with his elegant fingers, and know that later, when the spotlight had flickered off, he would be the one to take him home, to make him real again, to transform him from Hamlet, or Torvald Helmer, or Henry Higgins back into Eames. Just Eames, who was more then enough. 

  


Unfortunately this new notoriety cast a light on the nature of their relationship. Two men living together can only go unnoticed for so long, and the closeness between the two of them, the complete lack of interest in the variety of young women trying to catch their eye was hard to ignore. The sense of alienation that came with this and sometimes even blatant harassment didn’t bother him as much as he might have thought. They were careful, they didn’t reveal more of themselves in public then was necessary, and it gave them a certain peace, and relative safety from persecution. They were allowed to keep their jobs, allowed to live together, as long as nobody talked about it, which was more then he could have hoped for. Sometimes, he caught the looks and whispers, and it filled him with a righteous anger that made him want to lash out and attack, or grab Eames to him when they were walking together an appropriate distance apart. Most of the time though, he was more then content to live quietly, working, sharing meals with Dom and Mal, sharing books and philosophy with Ariadne, watching Eames perform again in the dark of the theater, building his house with Eames, building his life with Eames…He had never wanted the hero worship to begin with. 

 

  
  


Their lives went on like this for two years, and then war broke out in Europe. 

  


  
***

  


  


On September 3, 1939, they had listened on the radio as Prime Minister Chamberlain declared war on Germany, and Arthur saw Eames’ face tense almost imperceptibly, his hands clench tighter on the arms of his chair. Two months later he got the conscription notice in the mail. Arthur had been foolish enough to think that Eames being so far away from England would mean that they would leave him alone, but even the cornfields of Iowa weren’t enough to conceal him from the imperial eye of His Majesty’s service. 

  
Eames had handed him the letter silently, and Arthur was reminded horrifically, sickeningly, of the same moment three years earlier when the reverse had happened with the letter about his mother. With this thought in mind, he read the letter as though it was a knell, a proclamation of Eames’ imminent death. Eames had caught his expression, and pulled Arthur to him sharply, clutching onto him fiercely.   
  


“Arthur.” He whispered harshly against his ear. “This isn’t the end for us. This isn’t the end.” 

  


That night Arthur had pulled Eames to him, and they came together in a crash, pulling at each other, gasping for air, Eames pushing into him and holding him close tightly, so tightly, so that there wasn’t an inch of space between them, burying his face in Arthur’s shoulder, biting at him, as though he wanted to leave a brand. It was fierce and desperate until suddenly, somewhere in the midst of things, the pace became slower, his thrusts became languid and slow and he lifted his head, bushing his lips across Arthur’s slowly, back and forth. Arthur had clung to him and they moved together, breathing the same air, their hearts slowing to beat at the same tempo and Arthur thought he felt himself breaking apart. He came with a gasp, and Eames followed closely after, looking down at him the whole time, and when they finished, Eames stayed on top of Arthur, his face buried in his neck, and Arthur slowly stroked his hands down his back, over and over again, until they both fell asleep.

  


Eames left four days later and they had a farewell party for him at the Cobb’s, Ariadne in attendance and their neighbour Rose, and then Arthur had taken Eames to the train station to say goodbye. He was struck with memories of when he had left for England from this very spot, young and naïve, not even remotely aware of what he was about to experience, of the person that was going to barrel into his life and change everything. And now, 7 years later, was about to walk out of it again, and Arthur knew, everything was about to change again, and nothing would ever be the same.   
  


Eames had seemed bound and determined to remain cheerful, and Arthur wouldn’t take that away from him, merely hugged him close, his hands twisting in the fabric of his jacket, breathing deeply to pull as much Eames into him as he could. Eames made a humming, soothing noise in the back of his throat, and pulled back enough to kiss him, gawking bystanders be damned, and they stood there for what felt like forever, and was not long enough, trying to cling to the taste of each other, the feeling of each other, and of their hearts beating as one. The train whistled and Eames pulled back reluctantly. He kept Arthur close and said in his ear,

  
“I love you, okay? Don’t forget that you’re stuck with me.” And Arthur whispered  _I won’t I won’t_ and  _I love you_ into the fabric of his shoulder. The whistle sounded again and Eames pulled away suddenly and swiftly, picked up his bag and climbed onto the train just as it began to move. He leaned out of the door, balanced precariously on the steps and grinned at him, shouting  
  
“Don’t Forget!” As the train began to pull away, Arthur lifted a hand to wave and shouted back,  
  
“I won’t!” Eames’ grin grew wider and Arthur was reminded of that night in the pub, that first night and remembered thinking that he wanted to see that smile every day for the rest of his life. He waited until the train rumbled completely out of slight, until it was a small black dot on the horizon, and then he waited a few moments more.   
  
There had been a slow trickling of cold air down his spine and through his veins and he had braced himself. His body went numb, and he felt each part of his his face separate and freeze. The wind had pulled on him, tugging his hair loose, flapping his clothing around him, pulling him, pulling him away. The train was gone. He buttoned his coat, and went home. 

 

 

_Oublier ces heures_

__

__(These hours can be forgotten)__

 

_Qui tuaient parfois_

__

__(Those that are killing sometimes)__

 

_A coups de pourquoi_

__

__(With whys that hurt like punches)__

 

 

_Le coeur du bonheur_

__

__(The heart of happiness)__

 

 

_Ne me quitte pas_

__

__(Do not leave me)__

 

_Ne me quitte pas_

__

__(Do not leave me)__

 

_~Jacques Brel_

__

 

In those first few years, Arthur focused on the routine. On self-preservation. No one knew how long the war was going to last, so he kept feeding himself, kept breathing, kept reminding himself that soon, soon Eames would be home and everything could go back to how it was before, and Arthur could start living again. The years pass in a kind of blur, and later, Arthur can’t remember anything of importance happening. Other people start grating on him, a smile, or a laugh twisting something sharp in him. He wonders how everything seems to be flowing along as normal, how the seasons change and people keep living their lives, when everything in his own life seems deadened, the only sharp details being letters from Eames, news from Eames.   
  
Then, quite out of nowhere, two things happen in 1941 that are of great consequence to Arthur. The first is that America enters the war in Europe after the sudden and tragic bombing of Pearl Harbor. Arthur takes this news with a kind of vicious and jarring pleasure. No more routine, he thinks. No more of this sitting around. He is going to Europe, and not because of any sense of patriotism, but because he is going to go there and end this thing and bring Eames home.   
  
Arthur will think back and see, more then the moronic hopefulness, more then the righteous anger, the pure irony of these thoughts. Because four days after the attack on Pearl harbor, the second thing happens, and this time there are no explosions, no sinking ships, no retorts of gunfire, just a simple street, the sound of wheels on the pavement, and a wet collision with metal.    
  
  
  
In 1941, the second thing that happens is that Arthur is hit by a car.   
  
  
It shouldn’t have happened. Yes, taking into account the laws of probability, if a man walks the same route to work, at the same time every day, eventually, one day, something will happen that will interrupt this routine. But these things don’t happen to Arthur. The routine is sacred. It keeps him sane. And so when he is crossing the street at the light, the bank in front of him, sun in his eyes, at the same time he does every day, and Mr. Henderson’s brand new Cadillac 61 barrels through the red light and collides with his body, his first inane thought is,   
  
“Wait, this isn’t part of the routine.” And then everything becomes a kaleidoscope of sensation. He hears someone screaming his name (that’s Ariadne), hears the murmur and roar of a crowd, hears the slick slide of the car coming to a stop somewhere beyond his body. Bright color blinks and flashes behind his eyelids, and when he opens them, the sun is still in his eyes. When he moves his head to the shade, he catches a glimpse of his left leg twisted bizarrely like a broken doll’s, too close to his face. His second inane thought is,   
  
“I’ll never run track again.”   
  
And then,    
  
“There’s blood on my pants.”   
  
And then,   
  
“Eames will be so mad.” Though this last thought is not so inane. And with Eames, Eames, Eames, on his mind, the world greys, and then fades to black.

 

  
***

 

 

 

Arthur spends an entire year in the hospital. It might have been less, but with no one at home to take care of him, the doctors decide that it might be best for him to rehabilitate under their watchful eye. He has broken his leg. His hip is shattered. If he’s lucky, he may walk again. He will not be going to war.  
  
Arthur misses the draft. He can hear the parade outside his hospital window, the shouts of luck and farewell towards those brave sons of Waterloo Iowa who are heading off across the sea to fight an unimaginable evil. Arthur lies in bed under his white sheets, and looks at the white ceiling hanging above four white walls. He hates himself, but he can’t stamp down the viciously pleased feeling welling up in his chest. ‘Now they’ll know.’ He thinks. Now they’ll understand the hollow, gaping feeling of loss, of empty chairs at the table, and empty beds. Of the oppressive silence, and constant, unrelenting fear that these things might be forever. Now they’ll know.  
  
In a way, he is glad for his injury. The days of blinding pain and agony all fade together into one long stretch, and time seems to pass without him noticing. He loses whole months, and is happy when the nurse tells him it isn’t January, but March with a look of concern on her face. Months without Eames gone in a flash. Time he would usually spend counting the minutes, hours until he hears from him dissolved into the air. He focuses on healing, and then on relearning how to walk. In his letters, he doesn’t tell Eames about the accident, embarrassed that he managed to get injured in Iowa while Eames is fighting for his life somewhere over in Europe in the midst of an actual war. It’s shameful, and he intends on getting better before Eames gets back.   
  
Mal and Ariadne visit him. Ariadne is upbeat and bright, bringing him his letters, trying to raise his hopes, but telling him not to push himself when she finds him running through his exercises unrelentingly, sighing in defeat when he pointedly ignores her. Mal is quiet and introspective, her vibrant heart dimmed. Dom had left with the draft, and it seemed as though pieces of Mal left with him. Arthur looked at her and saw himself reflected there, and always had to look away. One day she brought him a tall wooden cane with a brass handle, something that had belonged to her father before his death. She ran her elegant fingers over the lacquered wood, and Arthur thought about how they were all orphans in a world full of happy families, and she looked at him and said that the cane was from England. When he eventually hobbled out of the hospital, knuckles white, fingers clenched around the handle, it was with thoughts of England on his mind, and of everything it had given to him, and everything it had taken away.   
  
  
***  
  
  
 _Your absence has not taught me how to be alone,  
it merely has shown that when together  
we cast a single shadow on the wall.  
_  
  
Years past. Entire years. Arthur’s hip is irrevocably damaged, but he struggles along. He follows a new routine, with more time allotted for him to get from place to place. He walks slower, shuffling, and feels himself caught in the drift of time, the slow molasses of passing months, harvest cycles, dead fields and waving sunny heads of corn. He gets more letters, few and far between, watches as the return address changes, as Eames get farther and farther away.   
  
This is his deepest secret, like worms dug in deep, hooked in his heart: he can’t remember what Eames looks like. He can remember things like the shape of his mouth when he smiled, or the way he smelled when Arthur tucked his nose into his neck as they tumbled into sleep, or the sharp way he laughed, projected deep from his chest, an actor’s laugh. When Arthur read the letters he could almost hear his voice, the roundness of his vowels like chocolate in his mouth.   
  
But Arthur has spent too much time suppressing violent images of Eames in the mud, in the snow, under exploding skylines, covered in blood, and soot, with glassy, unseeing eyes. Arthur has tried so hard to keep the nightmares from creeping, insidious, into his mind’s eye, that the remembered Eames, whole, alive and beautiful has slipped away from him. And he is beginning to think he may never see his face again.   
  
  
***  
  
  
Robert Fisher is the first boy from Waterloo to die in the war. Robert Fisher, two years behind Arthur in school, quiet and unassuming, guileless blue eyes, feather soft brown hair, rich, but not rich enough to avoid the draft. Arthur passes the town center on his way to work, and there is a picture of Robert there, and flowers, and young girls weeping, disbelief evident in their shaking hands, their choked voices. War exists, but it is not real until someone that you know becomes its victim. Arthur can see it their faces now, the realization that he’s gone. That he’s lying somewhere in Europe, shot through the chest. That Robert Fisher went away to war, and is not going to come back.   
  
Arthur goes to see Mal more. She was always so strong, so effervescent, but Arthur can see the old Mal slipping away. In the years since Dom’s been gone, Mal has become a shade of herself, dimmed, deadened. When she speaks to Arthur, and she really only speaks to Arthur outside of the school where she teaches, she sounds hollow, but Arthur can sense the grasping desperation welling inside of her, and he visits more often now to try and keep it at bay.  
  
So when he stands on her porch on a balmy summer evening in 1943, he is shocked to hear her laughing through the heavy oak of the front door. He knocks, tentatively, and wonders if this is the moment when he realizes that Mal has finally lost her grip with reality. He had seen it in glimpses, and flashes, her vacant eyes, her broken smile. Mal had always described her relationship with Dom like they were two pieces of one complete person. He wondered how long she would last when she was left so incomplete.  
  
When Mal opens the door, she is still laughing, her eyes shining, smile encompassing her face, her entire being. When she sees him, she gasps,  
  
“Arthur!” And hauls him into an embrace. And from over her shoulder, he can see Dom standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, and Arthur can sense the sheer joy radiated between them in waves.   
  
He feels overwhelmed, and when Mal pushes him back, he reels for a moment. Mal almost dances back to Dom, wrapping her arms around him, squeezing him, kissing his cheek, and Arthur can’t process what he’s feeling; happiness, obviously, for them, but more then anything, a rush of crushing devastation and swallowing, consuming unjustness. He chokes on it, and hates himself so, so much for feeling it, but Dom is standing here, and Eames had left in 1939 and he still hasn’t come back, and why is Dom here and Arthur hasn’t even heard from Eames in four months, and why is Dom here and Eames isn’t?  
  
Arthur stands, stunned, besieged by the sudden onslaught of emotion, and when Dom reaches out to shake Arthur’s hand, he sees it is the wrong hand. He sees how Dom’s right arm is only a hollow sleeve, pinned to his shoulder, and Arthur hates himself so much in that moment he can’t even breathe. He watches Dom and Mal’s faces turn concerned, and when Mal reaches out to him and he stumbles backwards.  
  
“I—I’m sorry.” He spits out through his strangled throat, and when he opens his mouth he tastes something salty and wet. He raises a hand to his face and he realizes he’s crying and he is so ashamed of himself that he can’t even look at them again. As he limps out of their yard as quickly as he can manage, he hears them, distantly, shouting after him. He doesn’t stop.  
  
He doesn’t stop until he’s standing in his bedroom, his perfect, neat and tidy bedroom, and proceeds to lay waste to his own possessions. He swings his cane and cracks the mirror leaning against his wardrobe, glass exploding and shattering, brilliant showers of tiny silver throwing colour and light across the floor. He tips his bed over, tears the bedding, loses himself in his fury, grabbing and throwing anything is hands come in contact with. He doesn’t think, allows blind rage to overtake him, and doesn’t stop until he throws the small wooden box from his desk across the room. The box opens and letters, Eames letters, flutter across the room like white parchment birds.   
  
Arthur stands frozen in place, and then drops, scrambling across the floor, pain rocketing through his leg, but barely noticing as he collects the letters. He picks each one up, carefully, checking for creases, and then puts them in order. He collects the wooden box and places them inside, reverently, and then clutches the box to his chest, and tries to breathe past the suffocating lump in his throat. He rocks back and forth, gasping, clenching his eyes against the tears that are pressing at him, unrelenting, and when he feels soft hands on his shoulder, and a soft, soothing voice murmuring to him incomprehensible words in French, he allows himself to let go. And for the first time since his mother’s death, he allows himself to cry.  
  
  
***  
  
  
 _Where you used to be, there's a hole in the world,  
which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime,  
and falling into at night. I miss you like hell_ .  
  
  
In 1944 Dom and Mal have their first child. She is something small and sunny and beautiful, born out of such hardship and pain, and she will never know her father as a whole man, but she’ll know her father, and so every day is like a blessing.   
  
Phillipa fills up some of the aching emptiness inside of Arthur. Phillipa doesn’t know that there was a time Uncle Arthur was happy. She has no sense of the deep, abiding loss he suffers. She is joyous and pure, and she loves Arthur even though he is so broken, body and soul, and so Phillipa makes the days slide by a little easier.   
  
In 1945 there are rumblings about the war ending. Then again, it seems as though people have been talking about the war ending since the war began, and Arthur has learned by now not to get his hopes up. Eames is still foremost in his mind, but he has become like an overarching specter, a weight that presses down and pervades every aspect of Arthur’s life in an intangible way. Arthur doesn’t really believe Eames will be something whole and soft and fleshy in his hands again, but it is a nice dream. One he’s sure will haunt him until his very last day.  
  
The routine continues as per usual, only with Phillipa time penciled in now, the glowing highlight of his day. He has just collected the mail on his way home from work, flipping through pointless letter after pointless letter, bills and correspondence from everyone who is not Eames. He hasn’t had a letter from Eames in six months, and every day that he checked the mail (checked the mail, checked the mail) and didn’t see that familiar looping scrawl, was another day he felt a tiny piece of himself break off and float away. Today, after six months, he feels like an empty shell, and he wonders how many pieces of himself are left.  
  
He swings through the low gate, nudging it aside with his cane without needing to look, the routine so firmly ingrained now that it is second nature. From the corner of his eye he sees a shift of movement at the house, and looking up, a man, sitting on the front steps, now slowly getting to his feet, a man in uniform.   
  
For one horrifying, sickening moment he thinks,  
  
‘This is it.” Every person who sends someone off to war has this sick nightmare tattooed in the back of their mind. This is the army coming to tell him that there haven’t been any letters for six months because Eames is dead, and his body will never return to America, buried in a soldier’s grave in some country Arthur will never visit. And Arthur won’t even get a flag or a dog tag or a token to remember him by because what he and Eames had wasn’t real by anyone else’s standards except their own.  
  
But as he stands frozen, the man walks down the steps, and watching him move, Arthur feels something inside of himself stir. Something born and bred after years of watching that familiar gait he had seen so often drifting to and fro on the stage, illuminated by hot lights, now stilted, now hesitant, but intrinsically bound to Arthur’s memory.   
  
Six years. Arthur thinks. Six years, and it’s so unfair that it fills him with a fury that burns him suddenly on the inside. Six years have changed Eames, he’s thinner, more lined, his mouth no longer giving, throwing out an easy smile as though he had them to spare. But six years have only honed what was already beautiful, carved it out into something breathtaking and the new lines seem to throw it into sharper relief. There is a depth of pain in him that there wasn’t before, and it takes his breath away and Arthur feels the six years now, more then he had before. He feels like they’re standing across a gaping void, the ocean still churning between them, a dark and bottomless pit and for a moment, it seems insurmountable, and Eames has never seemed so far away.  
  
He stands there at the bottom of the stairs, pulling off his hat and twisting it in his hands, and suddenly that familiar mouth quirks in a small smile, and there is a spark of light in his eyes, and he says,  
  
“Hello Darling.” And Arthur thinks, there you are. You’re back.   
  
The letters in his hand flutter to the ground like leaves, and distantly he can hear the sound of his cane clattering down beside them, and Eames is saying something about how he was going to go in, but some how it didn’t seem right, and isn’t that silly. Arthur is moving with a swiftness he hasn’t been able to since the accident. He is moving across the void as though it’s nothing, as though it was never really there, and he is 17 again, and running track in the State Finals, and he can feel the wind.   
  
And then none of it matters, because then he is throwing his arms around Eames’ neck and their mouths are crashing together, brutal and painful, and he feels Eames arms come around his back, and his hands fist in his jacket, and pull him closer, impossibly closer, and now they are moving in sync, and the kiss softens, but is full of everything of the last six years, the pain and loss and distance, and nights alone. And everything they had wanted to say in those letters but couldn’t.  _I’m only alive when you’re here. I love you_ .  
  
  
***  
  
  
Later, after Eames has seen his cane and his limp, and Arthur has kissed away the look of horror from his face, and his questions, the ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ after they sit together at their kitchen table and Arthur makes dinner for them, and almost doesn’t make enough because he has been cooking for one for six years (six years), after their food is forgotten at the table because Eames pulls Arthur to him, because eating and breathing are trivial and unimportant and they kiss and kiss until they are breathless and gasping with it, after all that, finally, they are standing in the bedroom, and the bedroom feels like a safe haven again instead of a prison.  
  
Arthur slowly peels Eames out of layer after layer of uniform, the drab brown like a suffocating cage keeping him from the familiar map of skin he once knew so well. When he’s finally standing in front of him, completely bare, he takes a moment to relearn it. Thinner, and paler, he lays his palms wide on his side, fingers fitting in the spaces between ribs like puzzle pieces, feels Eames’ breath stutter and contract. There is ink on his shoulder, an eagle’s head in a circle, the number 409 underneath, his company, and a large cluster of pink scars tracing over one collarbone, and down under his arm around his chest.   
  
His fingers trace the scars, gently, and he tries to keep thoughts of Eames bleeding from his mind. The scars, they memory they must be tied to horrify him, but he feels grounded in them as well. Everything feels so surreal and dreamlike already, and if he had Eames in front of him, whole and untouched, he would not believe that this moment was reality, was his to keep.  
  
Eames unbuttons his shirt, and pants, letting them fall to the floor, the whisper of fabric the only sound in the quiet room aside from their breathing. When they both stand there, bare, Eames gently pushes Arthur toward the bed, and lifts him carefully onto the mattress, resting above his body, and Arthur closes his eyes and feels the hot breath on his neck, the soft, sucking kisses pressed to his throat, his chest, and then hovering over the twisted skin of his hip, tongue and lips tracing the paths of scars with such tenderness that Arthur has to squeeze his eyes shut tighter to choke off the emotion in his throat that is threatening to spring forth in waves.  
  
And then that tongue is licking inside him, and he feels himself relax and breathe, and then curl in pleasure, and then fingers working him open and then Eames is sliding up beside him, and his mouth is on his and they are moving in tandem bodies pushing and pulling, always toward each other. He rolls them over and sits up, straddling Eames and before Eames can ask he’s sliding onto him, slowly and whispering, ‘it’s alright,’ and they both gasp, and shudder, and it’s been so long, six years is too long, and it’s like water flooding into the desert. Eames pushes up and wraps his arms around him, supporting and embracing, and consuming until they are flush against each other, breathing the same air, until the spaces where one begins and the other ends cease to exist.   
  
They are moving together, slow, languorous rolls of hips, fingers digging into skin and marking, and he bites down on the junction between the neck and shoulder, remembering that familiar smell of Eames. He licks and bites, trying to consume, trying to taste all of him, and when he tastes tears he looks and realizes Eames is crying, silent and gentle. He kisses along the salty tracks they wind across his face, and Eames lifts a shaky hand and seems surprised to find them there. Arthur murmurs, “it’s alright, you’re safe” and Eames breath catches and he grabs him forcefully and kisses him hard and devouring and then suddenly they are coming together, gasping into each other’s mouth, and six years seems like nothing, like no time has passed at all, and this, more then anything, feels like home.   
  
  
***  
  
  
Later still, cool and clean, Eames pulls Arthur to him, and he clutches him, and whispers in his ear, fiercely,  
  
“Never again. I will never leave you again.”   
  
And when he falls asleep, Arthur pulls back and spends hours and hours, until the weak light of the sun starts filtering through the windowpane, watching him sleep, cataloging each inhaled and exhaled sigh of air, fingers tracing every inch of skin, every scar, smoothing back longer strands of hair, placing gentle kisses across every inch of Eames he can reach. When his eyes can’t stay open any longer, he slides in as close as possible, and feels the heart beat, arms and legs twining together, and he thinks about the eternity of mornings stretched before them, spent just like this, and finally, finally he allows himself to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  


 

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in the desk in the bedroom, closed and private, there is a wooden box, and a stack of letters, envelopes marked England, Holland, France, and Germany. And next to them, damaged by wind and snow, blood and dirt, and the endless cold, another pile marked Iowa, Iowa, Iowa. Together they sit, in the warm darkness, yellowed with time, worn with age and days and nights of fingers tracing the shape of the words. Together they sit, no longer needed, paper replaced by voices and entwined bodies, by shared pain and unending joy and rain and sun and fields of corn, changing seasons, and whispers in the dark under the night sky. Memories of six years of loneliness never to come again.    
  
  
  


 

_I wish I may find you at home when I carry this letter to drop it in the box_ _,_

_\- that I may drop a kiss with it into your heart,_

_to be embalmed, till me meet,_

__

 

__closer.__

  


 

 

END

 

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Here are the authors of the quotes used throughout that weren't cited:
> 
> 1\. Katherine Mansfield (Letter to her lover, and later husband, John Middleton Murry)  
> 2\. George Bernard Shaw (Letter to his wife, Stella)  
> 3\. Doug Fetherling  
> 4\. Edna St. Vincent Millay (aka. my literary wife)  
> 5\. Mary Wollstonecraft


End file.
